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The problem with trekking, you see, is I’m not very good at it. I thoroughly enjoy it (except the scary, sheer, steep parts that always make me feel slightly outraged they didn’t come with prior warning) but largely, I throw myself into it enthusiastically.

I think the main, and most logical, problem is that my feet are a bit too small to keep me upright. I hold my size 4 feet largely responsible for the scars on my knees and general skidding of stones that goes on around me as I eye up Mountain goats with envy.

The other problem is that I often struggle to keep up with Matty and the Mongoose. This gets blamed on a whole range of factors – my short legs, their long legs, the altitude, my picture-taking, their long legs and their legs etc.

In fact, in the time it took me to amble around the base of a mountain in Uzbekistan, Mongoose, aka Mountain Boy had run up to the top and down again.

But now I have found a solution that makes trekking a wholly more enjoyable experience… Piling Mountain Boy up with extra luggage. Specifically my luggage.

That’s right, if I pile enough kilos of make-up, wash stuff, mirrors, hair straighteners onto his back then he walks at my pace. Genius or what?!

I discovered this on a recent two-day trek in the Pamir mountain range in Tajikistan, which incidentally is stunning. But more on that later.

We set off from Darshai to embark on a 20km hike along a gorge where we planned to stay in a yurt overnight before heading back. Sadly Matty, who had been up all night with a dreaded dose of the Central Asian Gruesome Guts Syndrome (Caggs), was unable to come along and so on this occasion the Three-Must-Have-A-Beers became two, joined by the lovely French couple Florian and Blandine who are travelling the Pamirs with us.

And there was so much to take. Huge sleeping bags (borrowed from the homestay), warm clothes, cool clothes, 6 litres of water, lunch, dinner, breakfast, snacks.

“How are we going to carry all of this?” I cried.

“I’ll carry it all in my big rucksack,” Mountain Boy offered.

“Oh no, I couldn’t let you do that,” I protested. “Ok, if you insist.”

And that is how the genius solution to all my trekking woes came about.

After 15 minutes of setting off on the trek and climbing a good few metres (having started at an altitude of 2,500 already) Mountain Boy was almost as breathless as me. Brilliant.

Admittedly I still tripped and stumbled across the paths but I haven’t figured out a way of shrinking his feet yet so that’s jut something I’ll have to live with for now.

Led by the lovely Gul Mohammed from our Darshai homestay and his dog Jacques (pronounced with violent kicking k in a Russian accent), we climbed up the side of a gorge and walked across it.

Some bits were very steep and when I tentatively offered to swap bags, Mountain Boy gave me a stern no.

And I’ve never been so glad to hear that two letter word. I mean look at that drop.

And so we ambled along, gradually climbing up to about 3,500 metres altitude, at this wonderful pace. Chatting, climbing, skidding (well me anyway), and pausing when we got out of breath.

We also kept a keen eye out for Ibexes, huge mpuntain goats with big old beards and horns, but sadly we only came across their body parts, which were cast aside on the ground and hanging off trees.

We crossed bridges made from just stones and branches, precariously balanced over the fierce flowing, icy cold river below.

As I kept my eyes on the broken ground in a bid to remain upright, I was distracted by the sparkling stones that looked like quartz and glistening soil. It was as if someone before us had scattered the ground with glitter glue.

Occasionally Gul would sprint ahead and start a little fire by a stream to boil up a pot of chai – and a smoke on a Cuban cigar that Mountain Boy had donated him.

But, alas, we didn’t have cups. He looked gutted, as he choked away on the cigar he insisted on inhaling, and we were mortified that we a) could not translate he should not inhale the smoke and b) had no cups. Soon I was drinking tea out of an old tuna pot.

And then, just as our feet began to ache and our bellies turned the rumbking up a notch, we reached our lovely home for the night. Truth be told there was no real dinner to come and the yurt was freezing, but it all looked good nevertheless.

Later that night, to conclude our dinner of bread, biscuits and raisins, I decided to eat half my Snickers bar, saving the rest for that all important energy kick at breakfast.

As I passed the half-eaten bar to Mountain Boy to put in the food bag, I saw a wicked glint pass his eyes and before I could grab it back, the whole thing was in his mouth, which was simultaneously breaking into a smug grin.

“Rucksack tax,” he simply said, once the chocolate had cleared his vocal chords.

“What you going to do? Write a blog on it?”

Travel Tips

We have hired a jeep to travel the Wakhan Valley and Pamir Highway of Tajikistan, shared by five people (us three, plus Florian and Blandine.)

We organised the jeep and driver thought the agency PECTA (Pamirs Ecotourism Association Information Centre), based in Khorog. They are just inside the City Park or you can call them on 22469.

They were absolutely wonderful, spoke amazing English and made all sorts of suggestions we would never have thought of including this trek. The Land Cruiser jeep we have hired costs 0.75 cents per km plus $20 per day for the driver.

We are taking the jeep from Khorog to Murgab over seven days, although we also have to pay for his return mileage, which is standard. It will cost us about $23 per day (for seven days) for the driver and jeep.

The Lonely Planet tells you all homestays provide sleeping quilts etc and this has been true except in this yurt! We ended up borrowing massive, bulky, but quite thin sleeping bags from the homestay to take with us, but were freezing all night. Also, there is a little stove in the yurt but no food so you need to bring your own.

What is the weather like in the Pamirs in July?
Lovely! It’s about 30 degrees (C) or hotter during the day but does get a bit chilly in the evening so take warm fleeces and jackets etc. At 8am in the morning when we were returning on our trek it was 12 degrees Celsius, but it felt colder than that.

What do I need to pack for the Pamirs?
Take water purification tablets! Shops rarely sell water because locals drink from the springs but there are lots of animals grazing around them so best to be safe! Fortunately Florian and Blandine had plenty of these tablets, which we gratefully borrowed! Also, be sure to pack a torch and buy enough water and snacks to last you however long you plan to be on the road – you can just load the jeep up at the bazaar in Khorog, so it’s not really a problem.

If you have a small, warm sleeping bag it’s well worth packing but apart from the yurt we have been well provided for in terms of quilts and blankets.

I’ve delayed writing this post for some weeks… in the hope that things would improve.

As previously mentioned on here, I have been known to travel places purely based on their cuisine – namely India and Thailand – which saw me leave south east asia a stone heavier after three months of scoffing my way across the region.

But there is no chance of that happening here. Well actually that’s a lie, I’m approaching 30, there’s every chance I will put on a stone – but I just won’t have had quite as much fun doing it this time round.

The truth of the matter is Central Asian food just isn’t that great. It’s full of dead-animal-flavoured-meat and huge chunks of fat that appear in all manner of substances. And it pains me to write this because I wanted to love the food here – I wanted this trip to be another worldwide eating odyssey.

Take this short story, for example:

We were staying at a beautiful family homestay in the Nurata mountains, Uzbekistan. The place was a delight, we spent our mornings ambling across the surrounding mountains and our afternoons drinking tea on a tepchan sitting over a gurgling stream and playing with the lambs that roamed the gardens.

And then suddenly one evening, as the sun was sinking in the sky, we heard the desperate, dying bleats of a sheep, quickly followed by one of the girls carrying its head by its ears down to the stream where we were sitting, leaving a trail of blood and guts as she walked. She meticulously pulled all the brains out, washing them thoroughly in the running water before returning to the house with the sheep’s skull tucked under her left arm, and carrying the brains in a bowl.

That night much ceremony was made over dinner. Following the usual meat broth of potatoes, carrots and mutton, we were told to wait for a ‘special’ dish that was still being prepared. There was a wedding at the house the next day and this dish seemed to create quite a buzz among the family, as if it marked the beginning of celebrations.

About two hours later, after we were quite full and almost ready for bed ourselves, it finally made its appearance. A huge plate of what looked like spaghetti bolognaise was placed in front of us, and while trying to erase the sound of the sheep’s dying bleat from my ears and quickly checking the lamb I’d been playing with was still alive, I politely tucked in.

It tasted of dead animals. The strong stench of cooked flesh reached my nostrils before the fork got anywhere near my mouth. I stopped breathing through my nose and bravely gulped it down. Grainy pieces of unidentifiable meat ground in my teeth before I had the sense to swallow without chewing. I tried to eat some of the wet, limp pasta instead but that too had absorbed the taste of death, like a Chameleon that had spent too long in a graveyard.

The Mongoose took one for the team and ate more than the rest of us could bring ourselves to look at. For this dish, beshbarmak, is a real honour and it would have been a disgrace to leave it untouched. It took us all a few days to eat meat without recounting the horrors of that night.
This is, of course, an extreme. Not every dish has been quite so bad. Some have even been good.

So, in case you are planning a trip to this neck of the woods and are wondering what is in store for you, or are just curious and want to feel smug about your dinner of bangers and mash tonight, here is my comprehensive guide to Central Asian food and drink:

Kebabs

The staple food here is kebab. And I have to say that most kebabs have been very, very good. Matty has even compared them to that of Victoria Kebabs on Mansfield Road, Nottingham, where he would end most nights back home in a sweaty-meat-infused state with chilli sauce dribbling down his chin. High praise indeed.

First up are the shashlyk kebabs – minced meat moulded on sticks almost like skinny hamburgers. They are peppered with onions and spices, often juicy, rich in flavour and – in my opinion – the safest bet when it comes to kebabs.

I think having my hair tucked into my sunglasses really offsets the meat in this snap.

And then there are the shisha kebabs – chargrilled chunks of succulent meat, served hot off the barbecue (word of warning – these often come layered with chunks of fat between the pieces of meat.)

(And in other news Matty has a beard!)

And finally there are the donar kebabs (shudder). But actually even these filthy-abnormal looking lumps of meat, that turn vertically before hot grills, are good here. I know, I never thought I’d say it.

So in short, if you like kebabs, this is the region for you. The kebabs here are great and cheap, you can easily ‘dine out’ on kebabs, salad and bread for about £1.50.

Samsa
Big in Turkmenistan, these pastry parcels of minced meat and fried onions are surprisingly tasty. Almost like a superior Cornish Pasty, the pastry is thin and crispy and the filling is rich in flavour. Wash down four or five of these with a couple of bottles of the local brew and dinner’s sorted.

Mantu
Like giant pasta parcels of minced meat and onions, these vary from the very, very bad to the very, very good. In Georgia they go by the name of Khinkali – the dumpling is light, oozing with rich juices and good meat. In Turkmenistan we found the dumplings were thick and rubbery and the meat was littered with small pieces of bone and fat. It’s a gamble… And one I can’t always be bothered to take.

Plov
The national dish of Uzbekistan is a tasty, if not heart-stopping, combination of deep fried rice and meat that on reflection, could easily be responsible for putting on an extra stone on this trip. It varies from region to region, but tends to include rice, carrots and either lamb or beef.

When we saw it being made, the meat and carrots were deep fried in a huge vat of oil. The rice was boiled separately before being added to the meat pan to soak up the oil. The dish will leave the plate ringed in a rich, orange oil and is not for the calorie counter, but it is bloody good and surprisingly moreish.

Dolma
This dish of minced meat stuffed in peppers is a firm favourite for me. Often piled into skinny green peppers, the meat is similar to that found in the Samsa but it’s nice to have a vegetable accompaniment for a change.

Fruits and Salads
If you are a vegetarian – be warned, meat comes with everything. Lumps of beef have been found swimming in my mushroom soup and even my puréed lentil soup, nothing is safe.

Most soups look like this.

On the other hand Central Asia is blessed with an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables so if you’re happy to head to the bazaar and put together your own lunch or dinner, you’ll be spoilt for choice. The tomatoes are giant and juicy, the cucumbers fresh and crunchy and the melons are so good it would be wrong to not get a daily fix. The apricots and plums are often so succulent you feel like you need to eat them over a sink or a bowl.

Breakfast… Tajik bazaar style.

Salads of tomatoes and cucumbers often accompany many of the dishes I’ve mentioned here – oh, and most things are also scattered with a generous sprinkling of dill, for better or worse.

Snacks

Street side snacks of deep fried meat or potato pies, or even just deep fried bread are readily available but often disappointing, lacking in much flavour other than that of the old oil they have been cooked in.

Alternatively you can pick yourself up some ‘dried yoghurt balls’, which taste like an unsuccessful experiment of leaving a pint of milk out over the summer months. For a more vivid, and horrifying, description of this delicacy please see Matty’s blog post here.

Expect lots of individually wrapped sweets to be served with tea at all times. Disturbingly, some say ‘Shrimp’ on them but fret not, they are not remotely fishy tasting.

However, the snack to satisfy all of the greatest snacking desires, will surely be that of the fresh bread and biscuits that are readily available across the region. Both justified previous entries in their own right, so click on the links for more details.

Drink in Central Asia
Whether you’re after a can of Coke, a bottle of beer, or a slug of vodka you will never have far to look. If it’s a Diet Coke or water that you fancy, you may have to search a little harder.

Entire fridges of Coca Cola, Fanta and Sprite are testament to the wide, gold-toothed grins of Central Asia, while apparently anything with the word ‘diet’ in its title seems to be unmarketable here. I am trying to come to terms with my Diet Coke addiction as I type.

As for alcohol in Central Asia, it is surprisingly plentiful. Despite the large Muslim population, vodka is drunk like water and beer consumed with a robust, healthy attitude. Wine on the other hand should be avoided. After a determined effort to get to know Uzbek wine, I can only urge you to stay away.

The beer is often weak (between 3% – 4%) but after much experimentation, this Uzbek bottle gets the prize for the Best Beer in Central Asia. A picture that the Mongoose has carried around on his phone for the last three weeks, flashing it to every waiter that passes our table.

I feel the need to add a slight disclaimer, in that this has been written after spending about six weeks in Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. I still have Kyrgzstan and Kazakhstan to see – and much more of Tajikistan yet. So perhaps I will discover a culinary delight that will leave my mouth watering and enthusing simultaneously. And trust me, you will be the first to know about it if so.

But in the meantime, I would like to conclude that Central Asian food, while not all bad, is definitely not worth putting on a stone for.

When I mentioned I was in Uzbekistan to my friend Treebeard (her name is another story but for now I’ll allow you to believe she looks like a tree and has a beard), I got an excitable message in reply: ‘UZBEKISTAN!!! Enjoy the amazing tiles and more yum bread…”

Treebeard is the only other person I know who has visited this delightful little country, nestled between Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. In fact it is one of only two double-landlocked countries in the world. But that’s enough of the facts, back to amazing tiles and yum bread.

At the time when I received this message I had not been in the country long and had spent much of that time largely been confined to the desert, hunting out a shrinking sea (that obviously does not connect to an ocean) and frankly had no idea what she was talking about. And then I left the desert and wow, the abundance of delicous hot, crusty, melt-in-your-mouth bread hit me like a sack of… bread.

And the turquoise and blue tiles that decorate the mosques, minarets and medrassas across the evocative cities of Khiva, Samarkand and Bukhara, caught me unaware like a magpie starved of diamonds. I should probably be telling you some fascinating tales of the impressive history of these cities, that are at the very heart of our Silk Road journey, but I think the pictures may just do it better.

So here’s to the amazing tiles, yum bread and much more of Uzbekistan…

It was the day after I fell over while climbing down a 2,300 metre peak, landing on my knees in such a way that took my breath away, and the morning before I fell into a river while trying to jump between large rocks in the water. Really, it is a wonder that my feet keep me upright at all.

But anyhow, it was on this morning between calamities, after eating a breakfast of mammoth proportions, that I found myself at an Uzbek wedding in the village of Langar, near Shakribsabz. We had spent the previous night with a family in the mountainous region and that morning our host announced that we would call in at a local wedding before a short trek through the canyon that connects Langar with the next village.

I looked dubiously down at my formerly black, now mud stained, Northface trousers. As mentioned, I had not fallen particularly gracefully and the impact had not been kind on either my knees – or my trousers, which now sported a childlike hole in the right knee.

“Oh,” I said. “Do you have a needle and thread?”

Ten minutes later, with the trousers suitably sponge cleaned and darned, I put on my hiking boots and looked at my greasy, suntan-creamed face in the mirror. I was ready for the wedding.

We jumped into a cramped minibus, where we sat on top of a few other wedding guests, and overtook a few donkeys before pulling over on the side of the road. From there we followed the sound of loud music over a little stream and up to a house where the wedding party was in full swing.

As we walked up the small driveway to the house, which had dozens of tables and chairs set outside, a man with an oversized camcorder filmed our dishevelled entrance. We were warmly greeted and shown to a table, which was lined with food and vodka within minutes. It was 10am.

The Uzbeks are some of the friendliest people I’ve met on this trip. When they say hello (Salam), they do so holding one hand to their heart, nodding earnestly and flashing entire gums full of gold teeth as they do so. Their hospitality knows no bounds and this wedding was no exception.

Tumbler glasses were soon filled with vodka and huge dishes of Plov, their national dish of fried rice and carrots, with slow cooked, tender chunks of beef or lamb, were placed in front of us. We toasted, we drank, we grimaced. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

We politely but enthusiastically nibbled away at the juicy, fried dish in front of us, hoping our big grins made up for the small mouthfuls, and wishing we had not all gone for a second egg at breakfast.

Then, as we were tucking into our fourth vodka of the morning, Matty’s smile froze. We heard the words “Anglia” and “Germanie” bellowed out over the PA system that seemed intent on keeping the whole village up to date with the latest party developments.

“They are talking about us,” he whispered.

And sure enough the MC of the party, clutching his microphone and prompt cards, made his way over to our table where he talked in an increasingly excited and frenzied manner, giving a grand introduction that would have even done justice to the final Beatles concert.

And then somebody pulled me up, and to the sound of clapping and cheering, the microphone was put in my hand.

“Salam my friends,” I started. Or something like that. More cheers and laughter. I cleared my throat and went on to say my piece, thanking our hosts for the food and hospitality. Or at least I think that’s what I said. Truth be told, it was all a bit of a blur as I tried to ignore the delayed echo on the microphone as my words carried across the village.

Next up was Matty, he sent his best wishes to the young couple and wished them a life happiness. Darn, I thought, I’d forgotten about them.

And then it was over to Chris, our third travelling companion for these few days, who offered them some words of wisdom in German and was also received with great applause. Sadly the Mongoose was not there to offer them his Irish sentiments as he has nipped over to Afghanistan for a few days. We on the other hand have been denied visas so it was our fate to now take to the dance floor.

Matty tried to refuse initially, a tactic he so easily gets away with at English weddings, but the Uzbeks are as persuasive as they are hospitable and he found he was the first to be dragged to the dance floor. Then one of the women made eye contact with me and I found myself up besides him.

The Turkish and Middle Eastern sounding music bellowed out once more, as deafening as in an Uzbkek taxi, and we found ourselves moving our arms and bodies in unusual ways as we attempted to copy those around us.

Notes of 1,000 Uzbek Sommes were thrust into my hands and into the headscarves of other women around me, which Matty has since likened to a really bad strip dance, but left me thoroughly confused while I danced like an unco-ordinated extra in Arabian Nights. And then a baby was thrust into my arms and I really wasn’t sure what to do with that.

No fewer than four or five songs later we were allowed to excuse our sweaty selves and retired to a shady spot under some trees with the old men, who had been wise enough to retain their positions throughout the dancing.

More vodka was thrust upon us. But despite all the food, merriment, booze and dancing I had that nagging feeling that something was amiss.

“The bride and groom,” I suddenly cried. “Where is the bride?”
Inside, I was told. The bride has to stay inside the house today.

“But she’s missing her own party,” I exclaimed somewhat incredulously. Yes, yes, our guide agreed, but she is with all the unmarried girls in the house.

I asked if I could see her and was permitted to do so.

I was led inside a cool, dark room at the far end of the house and as my eyes adjusted to the light, I spied a small girl get up from the back of the room. I went over to her and earnestly congratulated her in English with a few Uzbek ‘thank-yous’ thrown in. She must have been no older than 17 and incredibly sweet.

She is, of course, the one on the left.

The wedding was actually yesterday, I was told. This was the party for the village and she would not get her ring until the end of Ramadan, which begins in about a week. I couldn’t help but hope she would get more out of the marriage than the wedding party, which sounded like it was still in full swing outside.

As we were seemingly the only guests with a camera, she posed for pictures with her family, which I have promised to send on. And then I was spat back out into the party, where Matty and Chris were holding court with the vodka.

And it was only then that we set off on our canyon trek. And that is why I fell in the river.

Today I want to take you somewhere truly mental. Ordinarily you would need a 4×4 jeep, a reliable compass and a boot full of provisions for such a journey, but if you have a cup of tea or coffee to hand and a sense of adventure that will also do nicely.

We’re going to the Darvaza Gas Craters in the middle of the scorching, barren deserts of Turkmenistan. I think you’re going to like it.

The adventure begins in Ashgabat, a city full of truly bizarre and ostentatious monuments, but things are about to get weirder. After breakfast you lug your rucksack into the big (air conditioned!) jeep outside. The air conditioning is a significant luxury, you are taking on Central Asia’s hottest desert in 45 degrees and the sun-scorched sand dunes are a somewhat intimidating prospect.

You mutter something about picking up some water sooner rather than later after realising supplies are low but are scoffed at by your fellow travellers who think you are somewhat paranoid. They laugh and say ‘no sweat’ and unhelpful comments like that. But you eye the rapidly reducing water supply suspiciously, remembering only too well the recent memories of being ‘lost at sea’ in the Caspian Sea. Ok, you weren’t quite lost, but it was dramatic nevertheless.

The city is soon left behind in a trail of hot orange dust and the road ahead cuts through swathes of brown, beige and orange flat sandy terrain. Nothing can be seen except different shades of brown with the odd camel or donkey for company.

Then suddenly the car just fizzles out. There’s no dramatic bang, no explosion and drama, just the slow purr of an engine dying and the sound of a hand slapping the steering wheel.

“Machine ist kaput,” says Alec, your driver. It’s the first thing you’ve heard him say and it’s odd that it’s German but your guide tells us this was a commonly used word in the Soviet period.

“Oh,” you reply, somewhat glad you understand why your Turkmen driver broke out in German but nevertheless still a little put out by his news.

You watch as they take their phones out the car (they have three between them) and wave them in the hot sun rays from the top of a sand dune. You’re not sure what will happen first, if the phones will melt or they will get signal.

But then your guide returns looking pleased with himself as his phone was the victorious one. Another driver is coming for you and you need not worry, he may only be 45 minutes because he ‘drives like a maniac’, you are assured. Wonderful.

Somewhere between the German speaking and the phone waving the air conditioning has been turned off and there is no sign of it coming back on. So you lethargically peel your hot, sweaty body from the now sticky leather seats, cursing yourself for bringing so many black clothes on a desert summer holiday, and look for some shade. You eye up shrubs that are a little taller than others in hope of finding a shadow big enough to curl into, like a desperate snake that needs to shed its skin in cool, dark hole.

It turns out there is a little derelict railway station over the road with ample shade. The guide even gets out some blankets and offers you some tuna. The boys get out the iPad and a game of Trivia Pursuit is soon underway. But you wonder how long it would take until you would happily trade in an iPad for a bottle of water. Thirty minutes, you conclude.

The next half an hour is spent trying to ignore your pounding head as you swallow two paracetamols with the last dregs of the water. Then just when you’re considering grabbing a camel to go in search of provisions, the rescue mission arrives and after transferring the bags and camping equipment you are on that bumpy beast of a ‘road’ again.

50km later you finally reach the first water stop and, ignoring your fellow travel companions, you decide to buy enough water to keep a small herd of camels alive for a week or so, whilst muttering something about being right all along.

Now the sun is getting low in the sky and it is time to push on. Another hour or so later, your driver turns off the main road, and stops by a huge hole in the dessert.

You jump out, and gaze down into a deep, deep crater, full of emerald coloured water at the bottom. It’s a long way down and it’s somewhat ironic to see all this water lying deep beneath the scorching desert plains.

But the next crater, just 10 minutes or so away, is every better. Just as big, but stinking of rotten eggs, this crater is full of bubbling mud that made a curious gurgling sound as you snap away with the camera.

The craters were all created in the 1950s, apparently a consequence of Soviet era gas explorations. Turkmenistan is seemingly riddled with gas supplies, as I mentioned before, residents don’t even pay for gas here – it’s completely free.

But it is the third crater that is the real reason you have now been driving for six hours into the middle of nowhere. For it is the third crater that somehow, somewhere along the way, was set alight and now burns gas all day, all night and has been blazing for some 60 years.

You’ve seen pictures of it and even had a little peek at a YouTube video but nothing, I repeat nothing, can prepare you for what you are about to see.

To reach this crater you’ve been ‘off-roading’ for more than half an hour, climbing up sandy desert dunes and dropping down the other side in the jeep, which despite its sturdiness still feels a little precarious in the deep sand. And then suddenly, the final crater emerges. You can see the red glow and can smell the gas as soon as the car door is opened.

It smells like someone has left the gas on for a long time. It looks like the world’s biggest bonfire or the burning pits of hell. Suddenly you understand why fire was worshipped in times gone by. It is, quite simply mesmerising.

You stand there with your travel companions, gazing into the deep 70 metre by 50 metre crater watching the flames jump into the air, licking the sky. The wind changes and suddenly the heat and smell is unbearable, forcing you to turn the other way and close your streaming eyes.

But almost just as quickly you turn back again to gaze into the pit. Everyone is worried someone will fall in so you stand a good metre or two away from the edge as you walk around the crater in an anti-clockwise direction. You talk about how long you could survive down there and discuss whether it would be worse to fall into the pit of fire below or a great hole of slurry. Opinions are divided. You walk a little further from the edge.

After setting up camp a few hundred metres away from the crater (it’s not safe to camp closer), you return to the fire to watch the last rays of light disappear from the sky that is now illuminated only by the raging fire below.

After returning to camp for a delicious barbecue dinner, where you enjoyed tender pieces of charcoal grilled chicken and vodka in almost equal measures, you feel yourself drawn back to the burning inferno of the crater. Now the warmth from the wild flames is more welcome as the chilly desert air whips around you. For some reason you do a devil dance, which is filmed by your bemused travel companions. You’ve probably inhaled too much gas. It’s time to drag yourself away from the fire again.

Few things get you up before sunrise, but the fire does just that. Rubbing your eyes in a sleep deprived manner you find yourself wandering down the path to the crater once more.

The sky is a very pretty, pale blue as the sun makes its first hellos of the day. The fire jumps and blazes away angrily as if to remind you it has not slept at all for 60 years. It is just as menacing as in the thick of night.

And then, somewhat reluctantly it is time to say goodbye to the flames, pack up and drive the last, bumpy stretch of the Turkmen desert to get to the Uzbek border in good time. But that’s ok because you’re kind of in a fire trance for the best part of the journey.

And then two days later, when you’re in another country – another world, you realise it’s all still happening. It’s still blazing away. And that someone else may be devil dancing around it. And that is when you conclude that the burning Darvaza Gas Crater is probably the most mental thing you’ve ever seen.

Travel tips

Warning: Travelling Turkmenistan is expensive and intensely bureaucratic to organise. You can either apply for a ‘transit visa’, which can take a few weeks to come through and only allows you to spend 3-5 day in the country or a ‘tourist visa’ which can be picked up in a day with a letter of invitation, and in our case gave us 20 days in the country. One massive downside of the ‘tourist visa’ is that you have to travel with a guide and driver at all times except in Ashgabat so expect to pay $100 – $150 per day.

We opted for the latter to see as much as possible so our excursion to the craters was included. We booked with Stan Tours, as recommended by most people online and the Lonely Planet.

To be perfectly honest we were disappointed with our guide who failed to bring the country to life for us and at that pricetag, you expect that.

Tents, dinner and breakfast at the campsite were all included in our tour cost – although we had to pay $10 extra each for a sleeping bag, which felt a little bit cheeky.

Walking around the capital of Turkmenistan, I was reminded of those ‘If I was president I would…’ conversations I had growing up.

“If I was president I would end world hunger… I would make lip balm free for all… Roll out electric cars… Sack David Cameron.”

The list goes on. The point of the game is that it doesn’t have to be realistic… What would be the fun in that? Who wants to hear “If I was president I would re-examine the country’s fiscal policy with the aim of blah, blah, blah.”

It is meant to be outlandish, it is meant to be far fetched, it’s meant to be different. Sod it, I if I was president I would give citizens free wine and gin on tap.

But never when I was playing such games did I hear anyone say: “If I was president I would create huge, towering gold statues of myself that slowly rotate so that the sun is always on my face. And I would cover the country in even more statues… Of myself. And marble, there will be marble everywhere.”

But that is exactly what President Saparmyrat Niyazov of Turkmenistan did. Ruling as ‘Turkmenbashi’, which means leader of the Turkmen, he embarked on a truly bizarre dictatorship from 1991 to 2006 when he died.

One of his most popular policies was free petrol and gas for all. Gas remains free today, while petrol costs about 12p a litre and residents get 120 litres free a month anyway. Mental.

But it gets more mental. Aside from actually naming a city after himself – yes you can visit Turkmenbashi on the west coast of Turkmenistan today – he also embarked on a white marble building project so big that I felt my sunglasses did almost nothing to shade my eyes from the vast brightness when walking around the capital.

The apartment blocks are white marble, the hotels are white marble, the business centres and shopping centres are white marble and that is before we get onto the university, the palaces and mosques, which quite frankly display enough white marble and gold to blind a man with Primark sunglasses on a summer’s day. Because that’s another thing – this white marbleness just rises out of the desert as incongruous as a camel in Oxford Street, London. It’s all very odd.

Here’s Turkmenbashi himself, just draping a gold jacket over his gold sholder, with his gold hand… infront of a monument that looks a bit like a posh toilet plunger.

Even the subways are prettydamn swanky.

In fact I was reliably informed by a sweet girl at an Ashgabat market that the capital recently made it into the Guinness Book of Records for being the most white marbled city, or something. Well, as I say, every president has his dreams.

Despite the fact that I now see Turkmenbashi adorned in gold robes, sitting on a white marble throne saying: “If I was president I’d create a white marbled city”, while his minions politely cough, remind him that he is in fact president and watch him clap his hands in glee and order in bus loads of white marble, I actually felt quite sorry for him. Kind of.

You see in 1948 the entire city of Ashgabat was wiped out in a huge earthquake, killing two thirds of the citizens including Turkmenbashi’s two brothers and mother.

You could imagine any nation that had suffered such an enormous loss may want a monument of sorts to commemorate their loved ones, right?

Ladies and gents allow me to present just that.

Here we have ‘baby Turkmenbashi’ being saved from the earthquake when he was eight years old. He is being carried out by a bull, which we were told represents his mother who carried him to safety before dying herself. This sits on top of the Earthquake Museum.

But it gets better. Turkmenbashi wrote a book. Clearly a man with a lot to say and 5 million subjects to read it, he wrote it, got it published in more than 100 languages and then launched it into space. That’s right, there is a copy of Ruhnama (which I am told is a collection of his thoughts and philosophies) floating around in space. He also did what any sane author would do and built a huge gold and pink monument of the book in central Ashgabat.

Then there’s the giant ‘Arch of Neutrality’, a huge rocket-like beast with a gold statue of Turkmenbashi holding his arms out to the city, with flame-like gold leafs behind him. It has recently been moved from a prime spot near the presidential palace to an out of town manicured garden spot. Perhaps a sign that it was too much for the Turkmen, or perhaps more probably, the new president, who has taken to putting up pictures of himself around the country, felt there wasn’t room for the two of them. ‘No statues of the new president, yet,’ our guide told us.

But my favourite obscenity of all has to be the Turkmenbashi Mosque. It has the air of being built for Islam from afar but as you get closer you realise actually it is just another oversized Turkmenbashi monument. And it’s quite oversized. In fact, it is the largest mosque in Central Asia and can hold a whopping 10,000 people.

And just incase your thinking I’m perhaps being a little rash and unfair in claiming Turkmenbashi has glorified himself in building a mosque, allow me to read the inscription above the mosque entrance: ‘Ruhnama is a holy book; the Quran is Allah’s book.’ Oh, and it is also in his boyhood home of Gypjak.

Inside (no pics allowed) we were greeted with more than 20 huge marble pillars, a dazzling dome and a carpet of intricate detail that was apparently weaved by more than 100 of the finest carpet makers around. In the distance at the end of the vast circular room, we saw 10 men on their knees facing Mecca.

To the right of the mosque lies the huge white marble mausoleum, guarded by soldiers, where Turkmenbashi now lies with his family. It seems a fitting ending for a man whose biggest dreams and surviving legacy revolves purely around marble and gold.

In the meantime I have a new game to play on the long journeys through the Turkmen desert: ‘If I was a megalomaniac I would…’

Travel tips

Ashgabat is not an easy city to get around without a car. The roads are endlessly wide and long, the monuments and attractions are quite spread out across the city – and the bus network is a complete mystery. Unidentifiable bus route maps can be found at the bus stops but we could not make any sense of them.

You’ll be waiting a while at the bus stops, even if they are the nicest ones of Central Asia.

We found the best way to get around was by hitching lifts from ‘unofficial taxis’. Just stick your thumb out on the road and someone looking to make a few bucks will pick you up. General rule of thumb is 2 Turkmen Manats per person for city journeys.

Places with pavements that are too clean alarm me. I am used to pigeon-crap splattered floors that have been discoloured by dozens of discarded pieces of chewing gum, spat out then slowly and gently trodden into paving slabs over the years. I am used to frowning and shaking my head at occasional pieces of litter on the floor – or, as was the case in our Nottingham street, entire contents of wheelie bins strewn out for all to see.

So one of the first thing I noticed about Baku was how clean its streets were. They were not just clean, they sparkled – as if polished by a team of undercover street fairies who dance over them in silk shoes when the city sleeps. And this unnerved me.

But then you step into the old town and it feels a bit like a set out of Aladdin. Cobbled pavements are lined with ‘magic carpets’ and little stone doors lead into cave-like shops selling richly decorated fabrics and shiny brass trinkets. But even the odd, cobbled little stones on the ground were very clean.

But the prize for the cleanest, most sparkling floor in all of Baku must go to the marble viewing platform. Yes you heard me right, a far cry from the well-trodden floors of the Eiffel Tower or London Eye pods, Baku has a grand, shiny marble staircase (a bit like that one in the Sound of Music house, but this is outside) that leads up to a huge, impressive viewing platform with tremendous views across the city. The floor was so shiny I needed sunglasses to look down. And, to top it off, it was built in honour of Eurovision.

As we said our farewells to Baku (via a three-day ferry crossing, but more on that later), I concluded, just as I once did about tablecloths determining the expense of restaurants, that street cleanliness is indeed a clue to a city’s wealth. And that I am more more likely to fall in love with the poorer cousins of the street scene.

Travel tips

Baku is a very expensive city for budget travellers. The cheapest accommodation in Baku that we could find, after searching countless websites, was the Caspian hostel. It has a fab location in the middle of the old walled town but was overpriced. It cost 16 manat (about £13) for a dorm bed in a room that was cramped with beds. In saying that it was clean enough and the owner was friendly and helpful.

I would also really recommend the old city audio walking tour. It costs 5 Manat, takes about two hours and really brings the old town to life. Well worth it. Baku is also great for shopping and makes for an ideal place to stock up before travelling east to Central Asia.

I know it sounds a bit naff but sometimes I can’t help but think that things really do happen for a reason. Like the last time I was travelling and I didn’t get the job on a newspaper back home, causing me to spend another six months in Australia and meet Matty, or the time that mum wouldn’t let me sit in the front seat once and two minutes later we crashed into a van carrying ladders, which went straight through the windscreen on the passenger side. Or the time at Baku train station when I decided to buy four beers for our overnight journey to Seki, a mountainous village in northwest Azerbaijan.

As I’ve mentioned in every post for the last two months, there are three of us on this trip – me, Matty and the Mongoose. Three beers would have been the normal choice, but as I pulled them out of the fridge, my hand instinctively went back for a fourth. Matty and the Mongoose eyed the fourth beer suspiciously upon my return.

We climbed aboard the beautifully retro train, introduced ourselves to the two others in our little room and then took our beers to that strange no-man’s land of trains, between carriages, that rattles and shakes precariously across the tracks for a night-cap.

It was there we met Elchin. A country lad who now works in the capital Baku, he was returning home to visit his family for the weekend. His English was brilliant and we started chatting about cultural differences between our countries. This might not sound of much significance but few people we’d met spoke good English and we were bursting at the seams with questions, or at least I was. We dashed off to get that fourth beer for Elchin.

As we all clinked bottles, Elchin said: “You must come and visit my family tomorrow, I’ll show you around.” By the end of the bottle we had a plan, we were to spend the next day in Seki as planned, but the following day we would travel to Elchin’s home town of Zaqatala, to spend the day with his family.

Two days later we saw his smiling face again, as he met us off the bus in his home town and loaded our bags into his brother’s car. As we wandered the local market he was continually greeted by old friends and acquaintances. He had not been home for three months, he explained.

Here he is buying what I can only describe as deep fried bread, which incidentally is bloody good.

This is the man responsible for said deep fried bread. Good man.

Then we turned a corner and found ourselves in the live meat section. A couple of chickens had a cross word…

We left the fighting cocks behind (fret not, it was not a real cock fight just a couple of chickens squaring up to each other) to explore the little known city of Zaqatala, which must be pronounced in a mythical spellbinding manner, like a magician crying ‘abracadabra’.

And enjoyed a pot of cey (tea) in a lovely park at the top of the city.

Then it was time to return to his house for a spot of lunch. As we pulled into his lovely farmyard home, we were greeted by grazing cows, clucking chickens and his beaming mother who warmly embraced us as we each stepped out of the car. His father, brother, sister in law and their two little children all greeted us with friendly Salam’s and we were soon settled down in a shady spot under a large hazelnut tree for a bite to eat.

And then just when we thought the day could not improve, Elchin announced he needed to tend to the cows, and somewhat amused by my enthusiasm to help, agreed that yes I could help water them.

My hose holding skills were second to none.

Finally, somewhat overwhelmed by the fabulous hospitality, kindness, good food, and farmyard labour (what do you mean, I was only holding a hose?), we returned to our shady spot for a snooze.

As the cows nudged us awake we realised, with some regret, it was time to get the sleeper train back to Baku. The four of us piled into the car and stopped for a quick beer at a shady little cafe by the river that runs alongside the railway line.

“Four beers please,” Elchin ordered in Azeri. And as we raised our glasses for a second time in 48 hours we toasted to kindness, hospitality and new friends. Because really, there is no finer way to see a country.

I must start this post with a big apology for the long silence and lack of blogging. I’m going to blame being stuck on a boat for three days, spending a week in deepest darkest Turkmenistan and then camping by a shrinking sea. But I am now back (with plenty of material)! I say ‘back’ in the loosest sense of the word… We have entered a world where the food is meat and the wifi is slow. So slow it is almost impossible to blog at times. Nevertheless, I am determined to continue telling the world in words, so please bear with me if there are big gaps.

In the meantime, I have lots to tell you about. And I intend to start on a morbid subject. Sorry about that.

Rarely a day goes by when I don’t think about death. I don’t mean that I spend hours morbidly planning my own funeral or fretting how I will spend my last days, although, everyone indulges in that a little, don’t they?

I just mean that more often than not I’ll get a fleeting morbid thought. I blame the years of sitting in inquests as a reporter… the man who died after a candle melted down the back of his TV has left me suspicious of romantic lighting, the countless cyclists who sadly never made it home left me seeing even the smallest of vehicles as the biggest of threats when I cycled to work every day, and then there was the spot, outside a nightclub near my work that I passed too often, where a man died from a single punch.

But the other day, when visiting an Armenian graveyard, I was presented with an entirely new line of thinking on the subject. Let me put it to you.

If your gravestone had to tell the story of your life, or death, through pictures, what would it look like? Traditionally in Armenia when a loved one dies, the friends and family will gather together to think about how their story should be engraved on the gravestone – some choose to tell the story of their life, while others opt for death.

Visiting the Noratus graveyard in east Armenia, we were presented with a whole range of stories. From dramatic massacres to the mundane routines of life, the tales of the dead come alive on the gravestones. Two personal favourites, of such extremes, are the ‘wedding banquet’ stone and the farmer’s stone.

The wedding banquet shows just that – a large, rectangular table, crowded with smiling people, clinking glasses and cheering the happy couple in the middle. But to the left of the party, coming through an open door, is a man brandishing a weapon. The gravestone shows the scene seconds before he slaughtered the newlyweds and all their guests at the table, our guide explained. The couple are buried underneath.

Not such a happy scene after all. We were swiftly moved onto the farmer’s stone, that read more like a comic strip sequence of pictures. The first engraving showed the farmer leaving his house in the morning, the second showed him hard at work in the field and the third showed him coming home to a big Armenian barbecue cooked by his wife. Because that was his life. Day in, day out.

I looked at the big plate of food being carried by his wife and concluded his story was definitely a happier affair than that of the poor newlyweds. And as I walked across the field of story-telling stones, I couldn’t help but wonder what my tale would be. It had to be about life surely, not death, because it is life that should be celebrated.

I looked at the old women, knitting scarves and mittens to sell to tourists in the scorching 30 degrees sun, and wondered what their story was. What had they lost, what had they gained, what few pictures would sum it all up?

I turned to Matty as we gazed at the stone of the drunk fisherman who got bitten by a snake while he slept, and asked him what our story would be. He looked thoughtful for a minute.

“Wine, smiles and air miles,” he concluded.

And I decided that yes, the good times, the smiles, the laughter and travel would make for a very pretty picture in the graveyard. And suddenly it all felt a little less morbid.

Does it sound strange if I admit that during my time in Armenia I asked our guesthouse host if she knew anyone with sheep and cows who I could go and hang out with for the day? No, I don’t think so either. It was a perfectly legitimate question.

The thing is, in Armenia you don’t just see the occasional field scattered with a smattering of farmyard animals, you literally find them in their hundreds, being herded down the road like a massive army of floating woolly jumpers by a charismatic looking man carrying a crooked stick. And I just kind of wanted to hang out with him and his animals. And squeal and take pictures.

So it was in this vein that I found myself asking Irina, our wonderful host at Iris guesthouse in Debed Canyon, if she could set me up with a shepherd for the day. She seemed a little confused by the request and as I tried to explain myself, Matty and the Mongoose just sat back in silence, smiling as I dug myself deeper into a crazy-sounding hole.

A glimmer of hope appeared when she started dialling a number, explaining she had some friends with sheep, but then the whole thing was suddenly forgotten about and people started talking about monasteries or something.

So, instead of spending our last day in Armenia with a shepherd or cow herder, we opted to do a 7km walk from Haghpat Monastery to Sanahin Monastery in the Debed Canyon instead. And it wasn’t that I was disappointed with this decision as such, it’s just that we had already seen our fair share of religious sites and I just fancied hanging out with the locals, and their animals.

But as we approached the monastery even the voice in my head, that had been threatening to just get out of the taxi if I saw a cow herder and insist on spending the day with him, fell silent. Because it was very pretty indeed.

And after a quick look around, we left the monastery behind us and clambered down the hill to begin the walk.

We had scant details of the route but with an air of boy scoutishness about us, we crossed a gurgling river, climbed up a huge hill, found an ancient, neglected fortress and clambered over huge rocks that made me feel like Tarzan.

And then finally, after crossing an entire gorge and climbing up the other side, we reached what can only be described as a riot of flowers. A wild meadow of flowers, right up to our knees…

The flowers seemed to go on for miles and miles, as if multiplying in front of our eyes as they swayed in the wind. At first we tried to be careful not to tread on them but as they got thicker across the fields it became impossible not to.

After having a hearty skip through the daisies (well, Matty and the Mongoose that is) we reached a small village that had that reassuring smell of cow pat. What is it about cow pat and horse manure that instead of screwing up your nose in disgust as you do on train toilets, you simply fill your lungs with the stuff and sigh contently?

But it wasn’t just the smell, there was something else… a sound. A sound not dissimilar to that of the Mongoose tucking into a medium rare steak, I might add. As the boys walked on ahead I peered over a fence on my tip toes, to find something that made me positively squeal with delight.

And this:

And then, just when I thought my discovery couldn’t get any better, I looked to my right and chanced upon two baby calves. Just sitting there all doe eyed with their gangly little legs tucked under them.

By now the squealing and frantic photography had reached a great crescendo and a bemused woman stepped out of her house, confused to see an excitable blonde girl cooing over her calves.

“Awwww, look at the little runt,” I cried in sympathy, pointing at the little brown piglet that attached himself to his mum too late for a decent position, still trying to get some milk from here teats after the others had long sucked her dry.

The woman smiled at me, she understood. She opened the pen gate and the little runt came flying out, oinking squeakily as he scattered across the road as if still a little uncertain on his legs. The woman ushered me into the driveway of her home and starting filling a little saucer of milk, which the little piglet scampered up to and started lapping up.

I wanted to stroke him, but I’m not sure if it’s socially acceptable to stroke pigs in rural Armenia so instead I just continued to coo in excitement. The woman, by now probably thinking she had stumbled across some mad city folk that did not get out much, asked us if we would like a coffee.

I jumped at the opportunity (it had got to the point where I probably couldn’t hang out with the animals for much longer without getting to know their owner) and the Mongoose had that caffeine haunted look in his eyes.

She led us through a door into a small room that seemed to be the living room, bedroom and kitchen in one. She pointed on the bed for us to sit on, while she poured ground coffee and water into a small pan, which she then placed on a single gas ring in the middle of the room.

Sweet, soft bread was torn into pieces and placed on a plate on the table pushed against the back wall, which we ate with strong, soft sheep’s cheese, which was probably produced by a neighbour down the road. (I made a mental note to find the sheep before we left.)

She spoke no English but we communicated in pidgin Russian, body language and smiles. We did not need a common language to understand that she was kind, had nothing but offered us everything, and for her to understand that we were very, very grateful. As we bid our farewells, she pulled me in, held me tightly and gave me a big kiss on the cheek.

It was splendid. One of those rare days that grabs all your wishes in one big bag, as crazy as they may seem, and just dumps it on you. But as we started walking home, just when I thought they’d all come true, we heard the unmistakable sound of hooves on a stony path and saw the crooked stick of a smiling cow herder…

Amoo-zing.

Travel Tips

Where to stay in Debed Canyon?
We stayed at Iris guesthouse, run by the lovely Irina Israyelyan and her husband. The accommodation is exceptional – the three of us were given two bedrooms and a huge adjoining lounge with two balconies overlooking the lush, green valley.

The couple were extremely attentive, cooked delicious meals for us each evening and on our last morning with them, Irina even baked us a beautiful cake that was deliciously syrupy. We were quite spoilt.

BREAKFAST.

A room costs 8,000 Dram per night including breakfast, plus 3,000 (a total of about £17). You can call Irina on +374 (253)23839 or email her at irinaisrayelyan@gmail.com